Monday, 31 March 2014

Allowing
Feminist individuals or groups not associated with Socialist Aotearoa to bully
us into adopting exclusionary policies can be problematic at best and disastrous
as an organization that supports all oppressed people we must understand the
risk that such actions pose to Transgender and Gender Variant people. Recently individuals
who consider themselves Anarcha-Feminists attacked a rape survivor who is a member
and then later demanded that she be forced to subscribe to their bourgeoisie
feminist ideas. With that in mind I would like to draw your attention a recent incident
where an individual who considers herself feminist accused a Transgender woman
of sexual misconduct with little to no evidence (Bellow). under an Anarcha-Fem
Exclusionary policy anyone accused of sexual misconduct has to be excluded for
life regardless of evidence.

I understand
that Anarcha-Feminism is not the same as the notoriously transphobic Radical
Feminism (Radfem) however both ideologies are big on Exclusionary policy and
both groups have engaged in activities that some socialists (of all genders) have
considered man hating. As far as I can tell the only major difference between
the two ideologies is the definition of men Anarcha-Fems acknowledge gender
identity Radfems do not. However I recently came across a group (the Left Side
of Feminism) that claims to be an Anarcha-Feminist group yet is openly
Transphobic (Bellow).

My personal Experiences
with Anarcha-Feminists in Auckland have been mixed. In general I have not had
much to do with such people especially the most hostile members of that
community. When I did however have to work with such people I found them to be
very hostile to me when I was still presenting as a boy although such hostility
was not continued after I came out as Transgender. I wonder how quickly they
would resort to Transphobia if I were to end up in a conflict with a group of Anarcha-Fems.